It's all about outstaffing, business models, and the future

The notion of outstaffing has been around for a while in the world. Most companies use outstaffing to ease the flow of their business activities; others do it because they lack expertise in a particular field. In both ways, outstaffing helps businesses to reach milestones, achieve success, and build a great business model. 

The outstaffing concept sounds pretty straightforward and, at the same time, familiar, right? Perhaps you have been using this business practice without knowing it is outstaffing. Maybe you have heard about outsourcing and are even more confused about what is what. 

No need to be concerned! We are here to help you understand and distinguish between these two similar yet different business practices. Tune in to our discussion and learn what outstaffing is and its main business models. 

Outstaffing: defining the base

To give you a representation of the outstaffing practice, let’s define it in the simplest way possible so that even a milkman from Kansas or a five-year-old could comprehend it. Coming back to our crucial question: what is outstaffing? Keeping the answer simple and minimalistic, we would define outstaffing as a process of hiring an outside provider or a business to perform services. 

In other words, getting someone on your team for the tasks where you lack professionalism or expertise for a particular period (usually till the end of the project). For instance, hiring a marketing manager to run TikTok for a month as you have no idea how to manage this new and super-popular platform could be a great asset to your marketing strategy. 

Simply, companies ‘rent’ employees for specific tasks in a project. Most likely, these projects tend to be long-term rather than short-term, with remote work and control of the key milestones and outcomes. 

The superman of projects - outstaffing

There are two models used by corporations in terms of outstaffing. Let’s discover which one would work the best way possible for you, your business, and your brand! 

The first model is a cost model. In this type of outstaffing, the client usually pays a fixed amount per person, whereas the company manages all the money. Some call it "hidden HR management" since the job pays the person at its discretion (including bonuses and other payments).

Cost-plus is the second standard model in the outstaffing concept. The customer knows how much money to pay a person in the case of the cost-plus model. On top of that, it covers extra expenses such as holidays, taxes, office equipment, bonuses, and other expenses. It is a more open model, allowing as much transparency as possible—fewer risks and more power. 

Is the outstaffing model suitable for your business? Undoubtedly, whether to implement outstaffing in your business activities or leave it out for the future remains with you. Yet, you must remember that outstaffing provides excellent results for businesses that lack professionals in certain areas, requires supervision of new members to understand their work quality, and performs best on a project-basis. Simply put, consider outstaffing if your team could guide an overseas expert through the difficulties and challenges of the project. 

You are now a pro at defining and managing outstaffing, congrats!